August 01, 2013 11:22 PM CDTAugust 02, 2013 01:36 AM CDTGosselin: Leon Lett still in awe of the way Larry Allen played

Gosselin: Leon Lett still in awe of the way Larry Allen played

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Eric Risberg/AP

Thirteen of the position players enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame are part of an even more exclusive club. This baker’s dozen of the NFL’s best are the only ones to have been selected to multiple All-Decade teams since the 1970 merger. The group includes former Cowboys lineman Larry Allen, who will be center stage in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday. Staff writer Rainer Sabin takes a look at the double-decade club. Note: Former Cowboys DT Bob Lilly, Chicago LB Dick Butkus, Los Angeles Rams DT Merlin Olsen and St. Louis Cardinals S Larry Wilson were selected to the 1960s and 1970s All-Decade teams. All are in the Hall of Fame.

So the next time the two squared off, Allen jostled Lett with elbows, knees, hands — anything and everything he could throw in a pass rusher’s path. Lett didn’t appreciate it, tempers flared and the two players grabbed each other’s facemask. Lett then fired a punch at Allen’s belly.

It never landed because Allen ripped the facemask off Lett’s helmet, and life stood still for a split second following that incredible one-handed show of strength.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Lett said. “He wasn’t trying to do anything but defend himself. He didn’t swing or nothing. He just ripped it off. I looked like someone from the 1920s with no facemask. That was a ‘Whoa’ moment. After that, it was over.”

Allen earned immediate respect from his teammates that day. The respect from the rest of the league came quickly thereafter. He became a rookie starter in 1994 and a Pro Bowler in 1995.

The level of respect the sport has for Allen culminates Saturday night with his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — just the 11th offensive lineman so honored with first-ballot election.

Lett will be at the enshrinement. He’s now a coach with the Cowboys, who are playing in the Hall of Fame Game on Sunday night. Jerry Jones plans to bring the entire team to the ceremony. No one in the stadium will know Allen the football player better than Lett, though.

Both arrived in the NFL from small schools — Allen from Sonoma State and Lett from Emporia State. Both were men of few words. You could go an entire season and not hear 25 words from either of the big, hulking linemen. Their backgrounds and personalities spawned a long-term friendship.

But they weren’t friends on the practice field. Allen played guard for Cowboys and Lett defensive tackle. They went at it daily in practice for the better part of seven seasons.

“Practicing against him all week elevated my game,” Lett said. “It wasn’t a coincidence that my first Pro Bowl was his rookie year. I loved working against him because I knew on game day I wouldn’t see anyone who could match his power, balance and strength.”

Obviously, Lett was one of the few who relished lining up against Allen. So big, powerful and dominant was Allen that a term was coined for those scheduled to face him on Sundays.

“It was remarkable the number of defensive linemen who showed up on the injury report when they played us,” said Jason Garrett, a former teammate of Allen and now head coach of the Cowboys. “They called it the ‘Larry Allen flu.’ Guys wanted no part of Larry. It was not just how effective he played but also his demeanor and nastiness. He loved to punish people.”

Allen was honored by the NFL as an all-decade selection in the 1990s. He also earned all-decade acclaim in the 2000s. He was voted to 11 Pro Bowls. Allen was the most dominant player of his era — and he knew it.

“Larry had this little smile on the field, literally laughing at guys,” Lett said. “Guys I played with and against have told me they’d be the middle of their pass rush move, and Larry would be giggling at them, having fun, laughing. Jay Ratliff told me he did it to him when he came in as a rookie.

“I never really thought of Larry as a really mean guy. That wasn’t his nature. But he would just crush guys. If he had some real nastiness in him on the field, he could have hurt someone. He was mean, but not as mean as he could have been.”

Only as mean as he needed to be. Mean enough to earn a bust in Canton.

Listen to Rick Gosselin at 10:50 a.m. Tuesdays on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) with Norm Hitzges.

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About Rick Gosselin

MOST UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE ON THE JOB:
Sitting at the hotel bar with Jerry Jones that night in Orlando, Fla., in March 1994 when he decided he'd had enough of Jimmy Johnson as coach of the Cowboys.

SOMETHING PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME:I played hockey for a media all-star team in Detroit and once scored a goal against the Detroit Red Wings Old-Timers in a charity game at Olympia. As a high school player, I once scored a hat trick in a game at the Olympia. Love those "Original Six" buildings.

IF I HAD TWO SPARE HOURS, I WOULD:Take a golf lesson and learn how to hit a driver.

MOST MEMORABLE SPORTING EVENT I'VE COVERED:Impossible to pick just one, so I'll give you five, in no particular order:
- 1, My first Super Bowl - X between the Cowboys and Steelers.
- 2, 1983 NCAA basketball championship game between North Carolina State and Houston.
- 3, 1984 Orange Bowl between Miami and Nebraska.
- 4, 1971 baseball All-Star Game in Detroit, where all the future Hall of Famers homered and Reggie Jackson banged one off the light tower.
- 5, Speedskater Bonnie Blair's world-record sprints at 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
- Honorable mention: Troy Aikman's first college start as a freshman at Oklahoma against Kansas. (He lost.)

Hometown: Detroit

Education: Graduated from Michigan State in 1972, then spent two years working news for United Press International in Detroit, two years working for UPI sports in New York, nine years working as UPI's Midlands sports editor in Kansas City, four years as Chiefs/NFL beat reporter for the Kansas City Star, two years as Cowboys writer for The Dallas Morning News and 12 years as the NFL writer for The News.